Aldrea Alien's Blog, page 40

In Pain and Blood – Chapter Fourteen

Chapter thirteen had Dylan and his new companions starting their journey to the nearest village, only to be beset upon by a boar. Fortunately for them, they’d a hunter handy. Now they’re on their way with additional supplies, except there’s an unforeseen development…

Now, you might notice this post is missing a crucial detail, namely the chapter. I’ve been saying this since the first chapter that all the R-rated ones are only available by signing up here, which is the case for this month’s chapter. I will be sending it out only to those on this particular mailing list in a week’s time.

If you haven’t caught up and want to read the story in a slightly friendlier format, you can find all non-exclusive chapters on Wattpad and Inkitt. As well as a device-friendly ten-chapter preview.

I do have a song on my playlist for this one, though…

The Never-ending Story

[image error]April hath arrived and, with it, the passing of another 35,000 words. In Pain and Blood has still not deigned to finish. It’s close. So very close. Even though, at this rate, it’ll be pushing 290k. I have nine chapters to go. The vast majority of each one being quite full and merely waiting for me to pull all the threads together.

But I keep dragging my mental feet.

I’m currently working through the last painful piece. It’s slow going because I’m a wuss who easily gets upset when my characters do, even though I know the end result. This is why I don’t write much horror.

And yet, I continue to put my characters into such situations.

But once I’m over that hump, there will be blood. Lots of it. It’s the last big battle I make Dylan fight. And one of the main five characters will die by the time I’m done.

And then it will be the end for these characters. Until I revisit the tower in And the World Crumbled and tell their story. I’m also considering a little novella set after In Pain and Blood that would utilise multiple povs. But that is just a thought so far and not likely to come into effect until next year. We’ll see what happens within that time.

What do you find is the hardest thing to write?

Cover Makeover – BBtS

With the other covers more or less at their end point, I turn my attention to Burning Beneath the Sun.

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As it stands, not too bad in comparison with the rest. Certainly better than Spectre of the Golden Voice was at the beginning. It was what to do with those words. It’s especially a shame about “Burning” as I quite like it.

So, after a little tweaking and several takes for comparison, I came away with this…

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As you can see, I used the same effect on the rest of the words and made them a hell of a lot brighter. Whilst I like it, the effect doesn’t quite work as well as a thumbnail.

Only thing left is to switch to a completely different style for the font. Onwards!

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They’re both pretty similar. I am leaning more towards the paler one. It seems to be the easier one to read in a thumbnail size. So, unless I can think of something better, that will probably be the one that stays.

Weekend Writing Warriors – #8sunday

[image error]And we’re back with more of In Pain and Blood, which continues to grow on me. Will be hitting the next 10k milestone today. Almost feel like taking bets on how big the final first draft will be.

As always, if you want the raunchier chapters, as well as the ordinary ones earlier, then consider signing up for my spellster series exclusive newsletter.

For now, my dear Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday Folk, here’s another teaser.

Blurb: When a routine inspection goes awry, Dylan is left unleashed and alone. Afraid he’ll become prey for the King’s Hounds, he struggles to make his way back to the only safety he’s ever known. Or is it?

This piece jumps forward a little from last week’s one because we’ve already a fair few spoilers here. So, in brief, old roomie Sulin and new fwb Tracker have cooled down enough not to kill each other in the next breath, but something new comes to the fore with previously in-the-closet Dylan.

Surely, [Sulin] couldn’t guess such a thing from a single kiss. “What makes you think…?” Dylan managed to squeak before falling into a fit of coughing.

“So you are sleeping with him?”

“I-it’s not like that,” he stammered. “It just kind of… happened.”

The alchemist threw up his hand. “Happened?” he echoed, one brow lifting. “And how does that just ‘happen’? You two were naked together and you—what?—fell on him? Repeatedly?”

Don’t forget to check out the other excerpts at Rainbow Snippets, too.

Savage Swords by Viel Nast

[image error]Title: Savage Swords

Author: Viel Nast

Genre: Sword & Sorcery

BLURB

This is the first tale of my tribute to the great old one series, where I will honor writers and artists that cultivated my love for heroic fantasy, while I present my fantasy world Land of Oyr.

The character created will be used in more stories and play a further role (as well as their descendants) in the history of my world and the kingdom of Tarantis in particular.

Find Savage Swords on Goodreads

Purchase: Amazon US (Free until the 22nd)

About the Author

[image error]The love for reading came from an early age when my parents read me children’s books. Later when I learned to read I devoured any book I could hold my hands on! The turning point for my immersion into epic fantasy was buying the Lord of the rings centenary edition at 1992, for the one hundred years from the birth of J R R Tolkien. From then on and with my small teenage (and later student) allowance I grew my library. Now it includes more than a hundred books (and many more comics) most of them on epic fantasy. My first attempts at creating stories where the background information I made for my rpg characters (AD&D 2nd edition). I tried to make as elaborate as I could although for many years I haven’t written anything down. It was five years ago when I began writing down an epic campaign in the Birthright world setting of TSR. Even when the campaign finished I continued to write. I grew to like and expanded with stories we didn’t role-play. But serious writing started done when I was searching for a new rpg setting when I decided to make one of my own and wrote its history and timeline. As the information grew I realized that there were many stories I could write to make my world, Land of Oyr, feel alive and real. Also, I decided to make the tribute series with short stories dedicated to great authors I have read and shaped my taste in writing while introducing the world. Thus I published recently my first book a tribute to R E Howard, a classic Conan sword & sorcery story. There are many to follow and I have plans for a larger novel and an even larger heptalogy (!) where land of Oyr will be reshaped by cataclysmic events! I am also a self-publisher and had learned in the past few months before I publish the gigantic effort is needed to publish. Writing is only a small percentage of the effort! In day life I am married and we have a happy little boy of four months old. I work in a bank and suffer as a regular person the ordinary daily routine until I become a famous writer! I compete in HEMA events, swords fighting being another great love of mine and between or beside all these activities I listen to epic metal music!

Blog | Website | Facebook | Twitter | Tumblr | Goodreads

Weekend Writing Warriors – #8sunday

[image error]In Pain and Blood continues for the month as I try to finish what’ll hopefully be the final 14 chapters. Can’t believe the darn thing hit 260k yesterday…

As always, if you want the raunchier chapters, as well as the ordinary ones earlier, then consider signing up for my spellster series exclusive newsletter.

For now, my dear Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday Folk, here’s another teaser.

Blurb: When a routine inspection goes awry, Dylan is left unleashed and alone. Afraid he’ll become prey for the King’s Hounds, he struggles to make his way back to the only safety he’s ever known. Or is it?

This piece carries on from the previous one where Dylan gets himself between two guys with daggers…

[Dylan] pushed a palm against the hound’s chest, trying to force the man back. “Track, please. Sheath it.”

The man frowned at him, clearly unwilling to relinquish his hold on the dagger. His gaze darted from Dylan’s face to the others standing behind Sulin. Finally, he yielded to Dylan’s touch and returned the blade to its sheath.

“Do you even know what that man is?” Sulin snapped before raising his voice towards Tracker. “How many lives did your blade take, murderer?”

Don’t forget to check out the other excerpts at Rainbow Snippets, too.

I’m So Fancy

I like formatting my own books. I’m a bit of a control freak in that respect and puts less pressure on me as I can fix any minor details without pestering another person. Plus, it also lets me muck around with type, style and chapter headings…

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And it looks so pretty in kindle format. The first ten chapters of which you can get via Instafreebie to read on whatever device.

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Of course, putting this into In Pain and Blood means needing to find other images for the rest of the stories as lightning simply won’t do for them.

In Pain and Blood – Chapter Thirteen

[image error]Chapter twelve had Dylan and his new companions stumbling upon an occupied hunter’s hut. Fortunately for them, she’s the friendly sort. All that remains is for them to reach the nearest village…

Remember, you can get these chapters, and all the R-rated ones, straight into your email by signing up here, which will be the case for next month’s chapter. Omg!

If you want to read the story in a slightly friendlier format, you can find all non-exclusive chapters on Wattpad and Inkitt.

Chapter Thirteen

 

The rain had finally stopped by the time morning arrived. They left the hut as soon as it was light enough to see. Marin led the way, winding through the trails animals had worn through the forest, with Katarina at her side. He still wasn’t certain why she chose to live alone in the middle of the forest, but he doubted he was the only one grateful for her presence.

They’d left a great deal of the sodden travel rations behind in favour of the jerked meat Marin had hunted. She’d added other things to their packs, such as the mug and bowl wrapped up in his blanket. They issued the occasional clank whenever he misstepped. All of it crammed into a pack that was somewhat more robust, and heavier, than the previous sack he’d been lugging through the rain.

They’d stopped before the night had truly settled in to lay out the tents and, after a little fumbling with lengths of wood taken from branches, the women began what looked to be the fiddly task of getting those pieces to stand together. There were only two tents—Marin’s newer piece and a slightly worn spare—and both were of similar size. Although he’d insisted that he didn’t mind sharing the space with another, all three seemed intent on sleeping crammed into one tent.

He was willing to bet a large chunk of their reluctance was due to his ineffectiveness in the task of actually getting even half of his tent to stay upright for longer than a few seconds. No matter how he attempted to keep them from falling, the length of wood at the top end always seemed to tip off the fork at the other end before he’d a chance to finish righting the other.

Although the shape was similar to the triangular tents that’d been numerous in the army camps, these were made from several pieces of a leather and had rawhide ties in places he didn’t recall seeing on the other wedge-shaped tents. Of course, he’d not seen any of them dismantled.

“You know,” Authril said, jolting him from his hushed mantra of senseless muttering. “You’re not meant to stake the corners quite as far apart as that.”

Dylan glanced over his shoulder at the warrior, then back at the uncooperative mass of leather and wood. He’d stretched out the ground section as far as the leather would allow and it did seem to be fighting him. “That actually explains a lot.” He bent down and hauled the closest of the stakes from the earth.

“And having the top pole inside the tent might also help you.”

He nodded absently as he removed a second stake. That made a lot of sense, too. “Do you think you could lend me a hand?”

Shaking her head, Authril picked up the palm-sized rock he’d been using as a hammer. “Move over, then.”

Dylan stood back as she re-secured the corners, taking pains to watch what she did for the next time. It wasn’t an easy task. His gaze kept wandering, travelling up the woman’s arms to her face. With her skin not quite so dirt-smeared and her hair dry as well as being rather less explosive than when they first met, he was able to clearly define her features. The sharp angle of her jaw gave her a certain heart-shaped quality that rather complemented her large eyes and the numerous freckles.

It was her lips that distracted him the most. They were already the perfect amount of plumpness somewhere between full and thin. But the way she bit the bottom one whilst lining up the tent side and the firm press of them against each other as she hammered each stake in… it was almost enough to make a man want to never stop kissing them.

“There,” she said, breaking him from his reverie. Authril stood back, brushing the grass and dirt from her hands. “That should do it, help me with the rest of it.”

With the sides not pulled out quite as tightly as in his solo attempt, they were able to right the poles with little effort. The supports wobbled as they lashed the top pole to the others, but mercifully, the structure didn’t collapse. It actually looked like a tent now. Convinced he could now get away with staking down the sides, he grabbed his makeshift hammer and set to work.

“I wonder if you could help me figure something out,” Authril said whilst lashing the last of the poles together.

He sat back on his heels, glancing up from the stake he’d half hammered in. “That depends on what it is.”

Finished with her task, she leant back on the tree he’d chosen to pitch under. “Well, you’re human.”

He grinned up at her. “I am indeed and I’m fully prepared to prove that should you ever wish to check.”

She rolled her eyes. “And Marin is also human.”

“Obviously.” Dylan crouched at the next staking point and rammed the short length of wood into the ground. “Is this going somewhere?”

“How can Katarina not be human?”

“Ah.” He ducked down the other side of the tent before the woman could catch him grinning for an entirely different reason. He’d heard of elves being confused by the close resemblance between dwarves and humans. There were no obvious differences between the races like there were with elves, but then, their pointy-eared brethren had come from somewhere else. “Katarina is from Dvärghem. They believe they’re all, technically, dwarves.” Although there were supposedly non-dwarven hedgewitches, they’d be in the minority and unlikely to be wandering the forest without a dwarven company.

Authril shook her head and creaked an abrupt denial. “See I know that. You can tell me that until you pass out, but I see no dwarves here.”

He peeked over the top of the tent. “Well, I wouldn’t recommend calling Katarina human.” Whilst it could be little more than rumour turned folklore, there was a very popular tale about a prince who made such an accusation of a hedgewitch. Dvärghem as a whole might now lean towards more diplomatic resolutions, but the individual had challenged the young prince to a fight and won, proving that the hedgewitch wasn’t a mere human.

“She can’t be anything but human, though,” Authril insisted. “Everyone knows real dwarves have been extinct for thousands of years.”

Did everyone know? “I think the Dvärghem coven might disagree with you.”

The warrior wrinkled her nose. “They were short people. They found burial sites on the border of Heimat. I know that much.”

He resisted the urge to ask where she’d heard that. He’d no knowledge of any such sites being discovered. Perhaps it was a new discovery. “Katarina is short.” Shorter than Marin and himself, at least. The top of her head perhaps reached the base of his ears if he was being generous.

Authril huffed in pure exasperation. “That doesn’t count. Everyone’s shorter than you. You’re like some weird giant. Scrawny, too. Even for a spellster.”

Dylan thrust out his bottom lip. He could let the weird remark slide, but… “Scrawny?” In the last year, he’d managed to put on at least a stone and he’d eaten a great deal before that happened.

Again, the woman rolled her eyes, but failed to stifle the little smile that tugged at the corners of her mouth. “All right, will you stop pouting if I said lanky?”

Standing, he brushed the skirt of his robe clean. “What were you expecting?”

“I’m… not sure. The other spellsters, the ones Udynea took, they weren’t like you. They’d more meat on their bones.”

He chuckled. He’d never been the most physically strongest amongst his peers. “You should’ve seen me in my teenage years.” Scrawny would’ve been an apt description back then, with Henrie often comparing him to a walking skeleton. “I haven’t exactly been away from the tower long and the only heavy things we have lying around there are each other or some of the heavier tomes and we don’t really do much lifting of either.” Even then, he would rarely attempt to carry a tome without aid.

She smiled. “My point is that dwarves are meant to be shorter than elves. Shorter than me, than the humans that this hedgewitch is actually taller than.”

He shrugged and tossed his makeshift hammer into the undergrowth. “If you breed an elf to someone of human descent enough times, you would never guess they’d an elven ancestor unless they told you.”

The woman raised a brow at him. Something cold flashed in those sea-green eyes.

Dylan held up his hands. “Not that I’m suggesting anything. I meant it purely as an example. Dwarves used to be everywhere, but there hasn’t been any new dwarven stock and they aren’t adverse to unions with either human or elf. It’s not my place to question if they have the ancestry they claim.”

That there was some sort of difference was well documented. The ancient dwarves never used magic and a spellster who had child with a native of Dvärghem ended up with one who was irrefutably non-magical. Something else had to be there.

Authril opened her mouth, closing it swiftly as something caught her attention.

“What—”

Her hand clamped over his mouth, stifling the rest of his question. She pressed a finger to her lips. He nodded and she let her hand drop.

Dylan tilted his head, straining to hear what she could. Trees creaked in a breeze that didn’t reach them quite as strongly. Birds called in low chirps and whistles. There was the hushed drone of bees drifting from flower to flower in a nearby bush. Something small scurried through fallen leaves.

Authril’s hand grasped his arm, wordlessly pushing him towards where the others stood by the unlit fire. It wasn’t until he stood still again that he caught what she’d heard. Or rather not.

The birds had stopped singing.

In its place, the faint rustle of something large moving through the undergrowth, punctuated every so often by a deep grunting growl. The longer he listened, the louder the grunts got. It raised the hair on his neck and sent a shudder down his back. What sort of animal made such a noise?

Marin abandoned the camp fire she was attempting to light. She jumped to her feet, her bow at the ready. “Get behind me!” The hunter jerked her head, frowning when Authril merely drew her weapon. “Your sword won’t be any good with this, leave it to me.”

“What is it?” Dylan asked as Katarina scurried to his side. Was it a bear? Were there bears in this kingdom? He rather wished he knew the answer to that because, whatever it was, it sounded angry. And enormous. He threw up a shield to encompass Katarina and himself.

“With luck,” Marin muttered. “It’s dinner.”

A heavy black beast, roaring like a demon, erupted from the undergrowth and ploughed through the middle of their camp. Before he’d time to think on how to deal with it, there was the muffled whoosh of an arrow leaving the hunter’s bow and the thing veered off into the bush.

“Oh no you don’t!” Marin growled as she rushed after it, her massive hunting knife bared.

Authril followed quick on the woman’s heels. He watched their passage in silence, still unsure what he’d seen.

“You can drop the barrier, now,” Katarina said. “It’s not coming back.”

Not quite certain whether he should believe her, Dylan opted to leave the shield in place. “What was it?”

She raised a brow at him. “You’ve never heard of a boar before?”

“A boar?” Dylan echoed. That crazed beast had been a boar? “I’ve heard of them. Seen one?” He recalled one particular book he used to pour over in his childhood, filled with animals from all over the continent. Porcine of all kinds had featured on one the pages. The images he remembered looked nothing like that monstrous creature. “Not in the flesh. There aren’t more of them, are there?”

“Well, Marin might be a better person to enquire about that, but in my experience, they don’t tend to travel alone.” She smiled up at him and patted his shoulder. “But I’m sure this one was. I don’t hear any others nearby.”

He tilted his head, straining to distinguish the grunt and crashes of the other two women and the boar they’d gone after from the rest of the wildlife. The occasional birdsong might pipe up for a few notes, but the forest seemed to be holding its breath. Even the creak of the trees sounded muffled.

Further grunts and rustling precluded Marin and Authril’s return. The woman entered backwards into the clearing, each one with a hind leg in hand. The boar slithered on the ground in front of them. They didn’t stop until the beast was once again in the middle of their camp.

“Well now,” Marin huffed, brushing the hair from her face with the back of her hand. “That should feed us for a few days.” She looked over the prone animal with a sort of grim satisfaction. “We can roast him up, stuff ourselves and prepare what’s left for travelling.”

“Look at the size of it,” Katarina said. “It’ll take hours to cook and we don’t yet have a fire going.”

Marin frowned. “Bugger,” she muttered, nudging the boar with her foot. “I’d hate to just leave him here to rot. I suppose we could cook a leg or two for the morning and carve up a few pieces to cook tomorrow night.” The hunter looked up at them, suddenly hopeful. “Or we could stay here and let it roast overnight. Dry some for the journey? It’s a bit of a pity we’re nowhere near my smoking hut, could’ve chucked half of him in there.”

“Except all that would take time,” the dwarf pointed out. “I was of the opinion that having spellster unleashed outside of the tower was illegal in Demarn.”

“It is,” Authril replied, plonking herself near the unlit campfire and taking up the flint. “He needs to be returned to the tower. They’ve people who hunt down unleashed spellsters. If they find us in Dylan’s presence and think we’re trying to help him escape…”

“But no one’s going to be looking out here for him, are they?” Marin pressed. “And a day or two won’t hurt. We can afford to stop if it means more food, can’t we?”

The elf glared at the logs, viciously striking the steel across the flint. She muttered under her breath, but made no sign of disagreeing with the hunter. Katarina was just as silent.

“Then it’s settled,” Marin said, tying a length of rope around the boar’s hind legs. Once the legs were trussed, the hunter dragged the carcass to the base of a tree. “We’re going to need lots of dry wood.”

“That shouldn’t be too difficult, should it?” Authril waved her hand about to indicate everything around them. “We’re surrounded by wood.”

“Wood, yes. Dry wood?” The hunter shook her head. “Let’s just say I really don’t fancy our chances there. Everything’s soaked. Even the logs we’ve gathered will take a fair bit of drying to be useable and I don’t see that happening quickly in this weather.”

Dylan eyed the pile of wood set out for the fire. Anything burns if it’s hot enough. That’d been his first lesson before his instructors would even allow him to learn how to craft his magic into a flame.

He focused on the wood, encasing the pile in heat. At first, little happened. A gentle hiss came from the logs and steam began to unfurl from under the bark. Then, in one mighty fwoomph, the wood caught and began to merrily burn.

Authril jumped back, her sea-green eyes bulging.

Laughter, deep and rolling, came from Marin. “By the gods,” she wheezed, pointing a forefinger in the warrior’s direction. “Look at your face! It’s all pale.” The woman tilted her head. “Well,” she amended, “paler. Could you get more wood?” This question was directed to him. “Or are you able to help with cleaning the boar?”

Dylan eyed the hairy carcass of the woman’s kill. He wasn’t entirely sure what this cleaning entailed, but he’d a feeling it wasn’t going to be pretty. “I can gather wood.” He didn’t exactly think the forest put out the precisely cut chunks of wood he remembered from the tower, but he’d a fair idea of what to collect.

“We’ll need as much as you can carry and then some.” She’d picked up a length of wood sometime during their talk and tied it around the other end of the rope. This was chucked over the thick branch above and, with a bit of help from the other women, the boar was lifted into the tree. “As for the rest of us… Well, I don’t want to attract any predators, so we should set to digging a hole about here.” She stomped on the spot just below the boar’s snout. “I’ve a trowel in my pack, but it’ll still take us a while, so—”

“I can do that,” he said. His first attempt at manipulating the ground via magic had begun with scooping out small holes of dirt. It wasn’t as finicky as influencing an object and he was certain he could shift earth on a slightly larger scale. Worse case, he’d reduce the time it took the women to enlarge the hole. “How big do you need it?”

“As big as this fellow should do it.” Marina patted the boar’s shoulder. “Just make sure it’s deep. Last thing we need is more of them snuffling about in the middle of the night looking to root up their friend’s entrails.”

Dylan focused on the indicated ground. Sliding his influence beneath the surface, he wrapped his magic around a small section and tugged. Nothing happened. He tried harder to a similar outcome.

Maybe the trick only worked on tilled soil. The earth was harder, more compacted and full of roots, than the soil of the tower gardens where he’d last practiced this technique. He might as well be back in his nightmare, fighting the influx of mud, for all the influence he was having.

Switching tactics, he slowly formed an ovoid barrier just beneath the ground. He hardened the shield and tried to lift. Sweat beaded his brow as it resisted, but there was the tiniest bit of give that let him spin the shield in place. The muffled creak of breaking roots emanated from somewhere beneath his feet. Tiny cracks formed in the earth, growing as he heaved the section upwards.

Like a giant’s hand, the shield rose out of the ground with the earth still nestled within. Dylan waited only until the barrier was free of the hole before letting it dissipate, dumping the earth in one conical clump.

“Well now,” Marin murmured as she unsheathed her hunting knife. “Aren’t you full of surprises.”

Panting, he grinned her way. “It was wood you wanted, right?” Before she could answer beyond a nod, Dylan headed out into the forest. Authril was right, they were surrounded by the stuff. It shouldn’t take him long to find enough to serve their purpose.

He should’ve predicted the forest was waiting to prove him wrong. Much of the wood he found lying amongst the leaves was rotten and the rest required he possess an axe or slice at it with precise swipes of thin constructs, a skill he’d never had the knack for.

By the time he returned, the boar a little hung higher in the tree above where the hole had been and was being steadily carved at by Authril and Katarina. It was already absent of its forelegs, they were secured on a pole above the campfire and was busily being turned by Marin. What seemed stranger still was the peculiar structure standing where the smoke curled.

Dylan dumped the armful of wood near the fire and frowned at the array of wood. The framework looked to be made of saplings, the long horizontal poles at the top forming a grill-like pattern. Strips of meat dangled from this. “What—?”

“Jerky,” Marin replied before he could finish asking. “Or it would be if I’d a proper drying stand. Haven’t done it this way for some time.”

He eyed the stick she was rotating before realising it was actually metal. “And what are you doing?”

“Roasting dinner. Hopefully. It’d be a lot faster if I could get the fire to stay hot, but it’ll do the trick eventually. We’ll cook the rest of the boar tomorrow.” She tilted her head. “Haven’t you ever seen something roasting?”

“No.” The tower servants would occasionally serve them cuts of roasted animals, but most meat was typically found in a stew similar to the fare the camp cooks dished out.

“Haven’t you ever seen anything cooking? Or even cooked anything?”

“I… No,” he confessed. He’d done a few stints in the massive kitchen the tower servants used to prepare their meals, but it’d been manual labour, punishment from his guardian for… Well, he could no longer remember why she’d sent him there, only that he spent hours peeling and dicing so many things. He never did find out how the cooks turned the things he had a hand in preparing into edible food. “I wouldn’t know where to start with cooking something.” He rubbed the side of his neck. “Beyond fire, obviously.”

“You don’t know how to cook?” The hunter threw her free hand up in exasperation. “Did no one think to teach you how to survive out here? Sure, they couldn’t have predicted what happened, but they take you on scouting missions, don’t they? What if you got lost? What did they expect you to do then?”

“Die,” Authril replied as she placed more strips of pork on the drying frame. “If he was foolish enough to get separated from his warden, then he’s more likely to die before being found.”

Marin snorted. “Well, that’s stupid.” Her gaze ran over him, those light brown eyes molten in the firelight. She patted the ground next to her. “Sit down,” she ordered him. “I’m teaching you how to spit roast boar legs.”

The elf frowned at the other woman, her eyes hardening. “He’s not meant to be taught anything other than how to kill the enemy. It’s supposedly so they’re less of a threat to the general populous if they do ever become unleashed.”

The hunter stuck out her tongue and made a long flatulent sound at the elf’s back as Authril returned to carve more strips off the boar carcass. “Tough,” Marin yelled. “I’m not part of the army and, except for you, they’re not here to stop me.” She swung her attention back to him. “Sit, already.”

He slowly sank to the ground next to the woman. “I don’t—”

“Just listen. It’s not really the fire that’s cooking it, you see?” She nodded at the rotating chunks of pork. “Sure the flames touch, but it’s the heat they put out that’s doing most of the work here. Now…”

Dylan remained silent as she continued to explain. It all sounded very familiar to his old teachings of thermal conductivity. Most of the principles didn’t seem much different than what he’d done to the spellster, just over a longer time and on a smaller scale.

“I think I have a rough idea of it,” he eventually said, finally cutting her off. Focusing on the fire, he cupped a shield over both it and the meat. It was a fine balance leaving enough space near the ground for fresh air to enter as well as keeping the barrier porous enough for smoke to escape.

The hunter jerked back, eyeing the barrier between her and the food. “How is that supposed to help?”

He took up the handle and resumed turning. “Like you said, it’s heat that cooks it. My shield can hold most of that heat in.”

“You mean it’ll work like an oven? Yes!” Flinging her arms around his shoulders, she planted a kiss on his cheek. “You’re such a quick learner.”

“Wow,” Dylan breathed, rubbing his cheek. “What do I get if I actually cook it?”

Laughing, she ruffled his hair and sat back. “Why, dinner, of course.” She motioned him to lift the barrier and threw another bit of wood on the fire. “It’s a shame there aren’t more spellsters I could teach.” Gasping, she grabbed his arm. “Do you think—? I mean, I’m not likely to go back home, not if there’s nothing between me and Udynea, but do you think your tower would let me teach spellsters how to survive in the forest?”

“Honestly? I don’t think so.” It was possible the orders not to teach leashed spellsters how to survive on their own came from the overseers. Or even the king. “We’re rather discouraged from thinking about beyond the tower walls.”

They sat and waited for the boar legs to cook, taking turns at rotating them. Small tendrils of steam escaped the barrier, tweaking his nose. Even when the tower cooks served them meat, pork wasn’t usually a staple. It smelt good.

Soon, they were joined by Authril and Katarina. The hedgewitch gave a single appreciative sigh and settled down to watch the leg cook. On the other hand, Authril looked ready to devour the meat half raw.

Night had settled and his stomach was growling by the time Marin declared the meat ready. They didn’t stand on formality, or utensils, opting to eat straight from the bone. It was a little gamier than he remembered and a little charred near the feet, but not terribly bad.

Authril didn’t appear to mind the flavour at all. With much abandon, she tore off great the chunks of pork with her teeth. He wasn’t even sure she chewed all that long before swallowing and moving on to the next bite.

Marin watched the elf, her expression one of sick fascination. “You put away a lot of food for someone so small.”

Authril glared at her over the boar leg. One side had already been stripped to the bone.

“Elves usually do,” Dylan said, earning him a portion of the woman’s glare. “Especially meat.” He recalled quite fondly the way his elven friends would fall upon their evening meals like ravenous wolves, devouring all on their plates and scrounging that of nearby human companions for more.

Katarina, having eaten her fill, stood and disappeared into their tent with a farewell nod in their direction. Marin made a few more adjustments to the drying rack before joining the hedgewitch, leaving him on watch with strict instructions to keep the fire burning.

The warrior watched him over the leg she still munched, those sea-green eyes narrowing as the other woman left the fireside. “You’re staring again.”

His gaze swiftly dropped to his own half-eaten meal, almost forgotten in his hands. “My apologies. I didn’t mean to.” He risked a glance up to check that she was still looking in his direction. “You just rather remind me of the women back in the tower.”

Those luminous eyes narrowed, turning sharper than any blade. “If the word beautiful passes your lips, I’ll punch you.”

He grinned. “Would you settle for gorgeous, then?”

She stiffened, the leg of pork almost slipping from her hands. A flush of pink darkened the fair skin between her freckles. She turned her face, just as he caught her eyes turning glassy with tears. “Stop that right now.”

Frowning, Dylan ran their conversation through his head. Admittedly, he hadn’t known the woman long, but he couldn’t see anything inherently wrong in anything he’d said. Of course, the words didn’t always matter. There were far too many variables to try guessing which line he’d inadvertently crossed. “I meant no offence. I just—” There hadn’t been any heat behind her voice, the words more a plea than a command. “I won’t pry any further unless you want to tell me, but I take it there’s a personal reason behind it?”

She nodded. “I’d a… partner in Danny’s Cutters and he used to call me that all the time.”

Used to. Dylan stared into the fire, mentally kicking himself. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I didn’t lose anyone close to me when they attacked.” He’d been so caught up in what he hadn’t been able to do to stop the enemy that he hadn’t even begun to consider what Authril had gone through. “Do you know what happened to him? Did he suffer?”

Authril shook her head. “Clashed against one of their brutes. Bastard took his head clean off.”

“That—” He couldn’t imagine how he’d have coped if one of his friends had been there. “It couldn’t have been easy to watch that.”

“Well, I certainly wasn’t ecstatic. But Danny always used to say that in our line of work, death’s an occupational hazard.”

“If it upsets you, I won’t mention… that word again.”

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“It’s still true, though. If you don’t want me to call you… that, would you be offended if I used handsome? Or perhaps imposing? Terrifyingly commanding, even?”

She eyed him as if trying to solve a particularly difficult blacksmith’s puzzle. “Exactly what are you expecting to happen with your poor attempts at flattery? I’m not the type of woman to swoon into a man’s arms because he flashes his stupidly charming smile at me.”

He shuffled across the ground until their legs touched. “I’ve a charming smile?” He’d not heard that line for some years. Although the last person to say it had been a man.

“I believe there was a ‘stupidly’ in there somewhere.”

He grinned. “So there was. My mistake. As to what I expected… Nothing really. A smile, perhaps?” It’d been a rough few days. For the both of them. He bumped her shoulder with his own and whispered, “But you know you want this.”

A great peal of laughter escaped her lips before she could stop it. “That was terrible.” She shoved him, tipping him onto his side. “If you think I would sleep with the likes of you after that, then you’re dead wrong.”

The likes of him? Was she like Marin, then? Just less inclined to let him down easily. No, she’d mentioned a male lover. Well, being uninterested in men hadn’t been the only reason an elven woman would turn him down. He’d weathered several lashings from sharp tongues purely because he was human. And Authril was clearly a little uneasy around his magic, so there was also his spellster status to consider. Maybe it was all three?

Sitting up, Dylan brushed off his sleeve. Well, it was nice to know where he stood on that, even if it wasn’t in his favour. “That may be so, but still…” He picked a wayward leaf from his hair. “I made you laugh.”

“That you did.” She wiped a tear from the corner of her eye and grinned up at him. “And I needed that. Thank you.”

He flashed her another ‘charming smile’. “Anytime.”

Gasp, shock and horror. There is nothing from my playlist this month either.

The Weirdness of Worldbuilding

With the background to In Pain and Blood all settled, my muse has turned her worldbuilding attention to the next in the lineup: To Target the Heart.

This one’s a little trickier, being that the narration will be split in two. But also fun in having the Main Characters, Darshan and Hamish, trying to find a middle ground when there are things wildly different in the two cultures.

On one hand, there is rigid Tirglas, whose customs haven’t changed much for some centuries. Then there’s the far more fluid and extravagant Udynea Empire, which has absorbed so many different customs that you could find contradictions from one side of the land to the other.

And there are some rather strange things popping up as I smooth out the plotline for the latter half of the story. The Udynean half…

 

One such thing is the obsession with light. People who are romantically involved don’t say ‘I love you’. That’s reserved for family members and very dear friends. Instead, a lover is met with the declaration that said person is ‘my light’ (or ‘mea lux’ if you’re upper class). If it’s one that clicks on a soulmate level, then they will announce to others that this person is ‘my eternal flame’.

And it all stems from some messed up religious love story they have where the queen of the gods falls for a mortal woman and, eventually, is forced to either let her be murdered by the king of the gods or turn her into a ball of fire… that she just so happens to mount on her crown… and is depicted with in all her statues…

Ah, just smell the romance…

 

All I know is that Hamish’s reaction to the story goes a little something like…

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Blogtour: Ardent by Heloise West

Title: Ardent

Author: Heloise West

Publisher: Manifold Press

Release Date: February 1st 2017

Genre: Historical MM Romantic Suspense

 

BLURB

In the village of Torrenta, master painter Morello has created a color that mimics the most expensive pigment of all, the crimson red. Master Zeno, from strife-ridden Medici Florence, tells him the color gives him a competitive advantage – but Morello must be careful. Fraud is ever-present in the dye and pigment markets.

As they work together in Torrenta, Morello falls hard for Zeno’s assistant, Benedetto Tagliaferro, a young man of uncommon beauty and intelligence. Benedetto is still fixed on his old lover, the master painter Leo Guisculo, and cannot return Morello’s affections.

But when Leo dies in a terrible accident, it’s to Morello that Zeno and Benedetto turn for help. And Morello soon finds that in Florence, every surface hides layers of intrigue.

Find Ardent on Goodreads

Purchase: Amazon US | Amazon UK | B&N | Manifold Press | Kobo

EXCERPT

 

Morello poured the last of the wine from the pitcher and raised it to the serving maid for another. When she nodded, he turned to Donato. “Where is Benedetto?”

“There.” Donato flapped a hand toward some laborers and their women with Benedetto in their midst, a bright star surrounded by pale moons.

Morello stood. “Tagliaferro!”

Benedetto glanced over with a smile. Morello smiled at Benedetto in return, and Donato shook his head.

“Benedetto has been waiting for you, I think, Master. Every time the door opens, he looks just like you do now.” Donato pulled his features into a lovesick buffoon face.

Pleased and blushing, Morello ducked his head to avoid Donato’s assessing eye.

“Primo should give up and go home. I keep telling him but – ”

“Telling him what?” Primo crowded Morello on the bench and reached for his cup. “Well? What did the master from Florence say about your red?”

Morello elbowed his arm hard. “Hush, you! He said not to speak of it. There might be a place for it, and it might be just the thing I need.”

Primo sucked spilled wine from his fingers.

Zeno was testing him, Morello was sure, testing his honor and his integrity. He hoped he had passed. “They worry. Why could I not have dreamed of a new green or something? Why that ardent red?”

“But, what are they worried about?” Donato asked.

“Better to make my fortune painting for a wealthy patron with the real crimson than to have people think me a fraud. Especially at the cost of my life.” He grabbed a handful of Primo’s jerkin and pulled him close. “You didn’t tell anyone? I told you not to.” Every workshop had its secret formulas and techniques, and Morello had been in such ecstasy at his success he had bragged to the journeymen.

“We swore not to tell.” Primo put his hand over Morello’s and loosened his grip. “And he’s right, you know, so don’t take it out on me!”

“You will have more patrons than you can keep up with some day, don’t worry,” Donato said.

“Not here in Torrenta, I won’t.” Morello glanced up as Benedetto arrived and smiled into his blue eyes. “Benedetto, have these two louts been boring you to death?”

Benedetto seated himself across from Morello and next to Donato, who blushed and looked guilty. Morello reached across the table, placed his hand on Benedetto’s arm as if they were familiar old friends, and leaned forward to be heard over the noise. “How long will it take your Leo Guisculo to come to the attention of a patron like the Medici?”

Benedetto frowned. “Years of hard work. This commission might be the start of something big for us. But there are so many good painters and one needs an advantage to get ahead.”

“Master Morello could go to Florence and open his own workshop there,” Donato boasted. “But he had an offer to go to Milan, to a big workshop.”

“Ah, yes, Milan.” Morello frowned at Donato for the reminder. “Have you been there, Benedetto?”

“No, but Leo says nothing there can compare to what we have accomplished in Florence.”

Primo cast a meaningful glance at Morello. “Master Leo Guisculo?”

“Who else?” Morello reprimanded the drunken journeyman. “Hush, now, and listen. Go on,” he urged Benedetto.

Morello was not mistaken in the faint glow the golden man’s skin had taken as he spoke about what Master Leo thought of this and that. It would not surprise Morello to learn Benedetto had many lovers in Florence. He expected that from one of such beauty, poise and intelligence. Despite the fact that Benedetto directed all his conversation to Morello as if they were the only two in the room, Morello was unaccountably envious of the Master Leo reflected in Benedetto’s sad eyes.

 

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About the Author

Heloise West, when not hunched over the keyboard plotting love and mayhem, dreams about moving to a villa in Tuscany. She loves history, mysteries, and romance of all flavors. She travels and gardens with her partner of thirteen years, and their home overflows with books, cats, art, and red wine.

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